Triptych
by Shadowlass
Summary: Three snapshots of Lorne, from happiness to heartbreak. Spoilers for the entire run of AtS. COMPLETE.
1. Caritas

TITLE: Triptych

AUTHOR: Shadowlass

EMAIL: shadowlass2000yahoo.com

SUMMARY: Three snapshots of Lorne, from happiness to heartbreak. Spoilers for the entire run of AtS.

RATING: PG

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Lorne, but I sure like the guy.

**Chapter One: Caritas**

I don't know what it is about the guy—he makes you want to help him. I think it's the way he hates to ask. If he had his way, he'd probably walk around all day not asking. Or talking, for that matter. Giving people those deep, dark looks, like he's carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Or like he's trying to figure out how to program his VCR. It could go either way.

Of course, what I mean by _hates to ask_ is "stomps in and demands help and sometimes gets your place destroyed." But it's the thought that counts … right?

Look, that's what I have to tell myself. Otherwise the guy's just a jerk who comes in to get what he needs with no thought about anyone else. And I tell you, I can't help but like the big lug. Not just because he smells like kumquats, but because he's always there trying. Sometimes he gets his head smacked against reality, but the trying—man, I'm a sucker for trying. Gets me right in the old ass, and—wait. Just to be clear about this, I'm talking about my heart. You get that, right?

'Course you do.

I like warriors, I really do. But I like them from a distance. That's why I own a club, instead of wielding one. All that hacking and slashing and, uh … okay, that's just unpleasant. It goes right along with wearing someone's skin as clothes and having a dance of joy that most closely resembles the mating ritual of the foklar, which are … well, I guess the closest thing on earth are pandas. Except with really big horns, some of which aren't where you'd expect them to be.

So let's get this clear: I respect champions. I don't want to be one. I don't want to be surrounded by them. I want to be surrounded by happy people, singing people, drinking  people. Happy chattering people, and cabana boys named Pablo. Honestly, there's a reason I want Angel to sing, not talk, and it not 'cause he's Mario Lanza. But sometimes, when he sings, these little bits bubble up, and I can see how he's trying. Like I said, I rate trying pretty high on the Lorne-o-meter.

I used to try. Back hom—in Pylia, which is most certainly _not_ home. Well, I tried a couple of times. To be the son my mother always wanted, big and strong. And you know, I didn't do too bad on the big and strong part. It was the fierce-warrior-out-for-blood part that I always sucked at. They really probably _should_ have eaten me instead of Moog, just like Dad always said. I would have been meatier, probably. Definitely more tender. These boots are made for sitting, or words to that effect.

When I stumbled through that vortex that brought me to L.A., I was happy as a pig at high tide, or whatever it is that makes pigs happy. Other pigs? Plentiful slop? Heck, I don't know. But whatever it is, that's how happy I was. Music in the air—in shops, coming out of cars, people singing as they walked down the street. Someone I didn't even know—I mean, _hello_, strange world here—came up to me and offered me a job in his nightclub when he heard me singing. Out loud, with joy, the way I never could in Pylia. Not if I didn't want to lose my head.

It was paradise. It still is. This world—it's tough, but it has a tender side too. Singing and seabreezes and fat-free desserts, everything that makes life worth living. And here, at Caritas, I can help. I can be a little bit of a hero, too. Very little, maybe. But I can help people. They sing and I love it, and then I help them. Sometimes what I read in them scares me. Sometimes it brings a tear to my eye—a happy tear, I mean. And then I climb on stage and people stop what they're doing to listen to me. Back _there_ I was the shame of a great clan. Here I'm just Lorne, and that's how I like it.

So babe, I didn't leave my heart in San Francisco, as it were. My heart's right here, intact, resting against a barstool of the finest Corinthian leather.

It's not where I was bred to be, but it is where I was meant to be.


	2. Wolfram & Hart

**Chapter Two: Wolfram & Hart**

Here I am, in the belly of the beast—and it's heaven! Heaven on earth, delivered by hell's most fantabulous flunkies. Who seem perfectly normal most of the time, except for that crawly dead thing behind their eyes—you know, like Paris Hilton. They'd kill me to get my job, each and every one of them. I don't mind; I'm used to being envied. And by _I don't mind,_ I mean I'm trying really hard not to think of it, so don't remind me, okay?

But really, I can't blame them—it's scrumptious!

This place is made for me, or maybe I was made for it. It's was wall-to-wall fun, with hardly any unpleasant associations—hey, the Senior Partners were never gunning for me, except for that one little time they had my brain sucked. But that was mostly Sinistra, as far as I'm concerned; I could see her slimy little pawprints all over that one. But me, I'm just an adjunct, a friend of the big guy. They're not going to bother with me, 'cause I don't bother with them. We're not pals, but we mostly didn't step on each other's toes. Which, as far as I'm concerned, makes it all-righty for me to be here. And by all-righty, I mean _safe_.

But the others—okay, Wes and Fred are knowledge geeks; offer them a king-size library or science … arium, and they go nuts, bless their little hearts. Gunn—well, I don't know. Maybe he wanted a change after breaking up with Fred. Angel….

Angel. That's the big mystery. Not exactly _I came, I saw, I conquered_, is it? More_, I came, they offered me a nice corner office, and I said yippee!_ And for what? A little filtered sunlight? Hey, I go out in the sunlight every day—I mean every day I get up before four—and let me tell you: L.A. sunlight? Nothing special. Got an unpleasant aftertaste, like _Joe Millionaire,_ or boxed wine.

It doesn't seem like Angel, but maybe I don't know Angel that well anymore. Heck, maybe I never did. All that business with Jasmine—messing with a god could make anyone crazy; I hope we don't end up with another ancient god with a pretty face anytime soon, because a little of one goes a long way.

But things are good. Got my sleep back now—and better than ever, babe! Except for the nightmares. They're kind of, well … okay, they're just not good. Last night … you know how sometimes you dream you're at home, only it's not your house? But you still live there? It wasn't like that at all. This was my place. Exactly, every bit of it. Even the patina on the cupboards was the same. I particularly noticed the cupboards, what with my attention being riveted to the blood dripping out of them. People had been shoved in the cupboards and stabbed right through the wood, as some kind of a warning to me. It kept changing in my dream, who was in the cupboards. Usually it was friends—Fred and Wes and … Spike, I think?

But I don't know for sure who it was, because I didn't look. I didn't do anything.

I just stood there, staring, telling myself I should open the cupboard doors to see if there were any survivors, but I was too afraid to move. The dream ended with me standing there, just watching the blood slowly drip.

Okay, it was scary. But the thing is, dreams have never told me anything. They're just like movies. A different one every night. Sometimes two.

Sometimes I really wish I didn't have the sleep back.

Eyes on the prize, big guy. Eyes on the prize. Nobody said it was easy being green, right?   
And I'm not going to be here long. I keep my mitts clean, sign some really happening talent, and the next thing you know, I retire to Boca with a fat bank account and hugs all around. It's a thing. A thing with my name written all over it.

And … ixnay on the ossipgay, but Elvis? The rumors are true. Shacked up with Dionne Warwick in Palm Springs, healing a new face. But remember, baby cakes—hush-hush!


	3. Club Fugazi

**Chapter Three: Club Fugazi**

I've heard of places like this, but even Vegas is tame in comparison. If there's a place I was meant to be, sugarplums, it's Club Fugazi. Where beloved locals wear fifty-pound costumes with hats the approximate size of an airplane hangar, and play to packed houses eight times a week. Of course they love me—it's got _me_ written all over it.. Who can blame them?

Thing is, it's over for me.

I'm not sure how I wound up in San Francisco. I got on a bus, and this is where I ended up. It's probably for the best—I can't think of any place less likely to notice a green-skinned man. Los Angeles, of course, but that's what I was escaping from. Las Vegas, but that's another kind of hell. Atlantic City, maybe, but that's just adding insult to injury.

I know what happened to them. They didn't survive. No, I didn't find that out through mystical sources, or the grapevine, or even just calling the Hyperion—that's where they were going to set up shop, again, if they survived. It was Gunn's suggestion. Angel didn't have an _after_ plan. No matter what hopeful little thing everyone else thought, Angel didn't expect there to be an after to plan for. Probably half the reason he decided to do it. Why the hell else? To stop being a gnat to the Senior Partners, and be an actual mosquito for the fraction of a second it would take them to squash him like a hat a really careless and soon-to-be-fired assistant left on a chair? Not likely. He wanted to get away from the misery and the guilt of life. Wasn't like it was the first time he tried it.

I know what happened because it was the only thing that could happen. What, you battle the force of hell and come out of it alive? Angel and the others are champions, but if it's one thing I found out after joining Wolfram & Hart, it's that everyone's mortal. The fact that one of the champions was a god-king wearing Fred's body was enough of a clue, you know?

I know where they are, too. They're at Wolfram & Hart right now. Not reading over cases, or drinking some nice otter-y blood, but doing the bidding of the Senior Partners, the same way Lilah was when she offered us the joint. They signed contracts. All of us did. Standard perpetuity clause. So even if Angel got the release he was hoping for, he's tied to them. Only now he doesn't rate as high.. Now he's just their servant, not their enemy.

I can't imagine he had that in mind, but it was plain there was no reasoning with him. For that matter, I was afraid to. For the first time in all the years I've known Angel, I was afraid of him. He was doing what he wanted, whether we liked it or not.

Same as it was when he erased our memories, I guess. I don't know why it even surprised me. Maybe it was a pattern. Maybe I didn't want to see it. I sure didn't want to live it.

You know, I never liked film noir. I know artistic types are supposed to love it, so moody, so metaphorical, but it always depressed me. Miserable people moping around, looking sulky and photogenic and tragic. Now I'm a character in a film noir. Even watching them was better than this.

The look on his face keeps coming back to me—he expected Angel to betray him; he just didn't think it would be me pulling the trigger. How was it he knew Angel so much better than I did? Even after Angel told me what to do, even after he brushed off my protests, I wanted to believe he was better than that. What a joke. Did Wolfram & Hart seep into him, or had it already been there—was it what led him to accept the job? And me? What about me? I'd gone there too, willingly.

I fired that gun, willingly.

God.

They're expecting me to come in for the show today, and tomorrow, and the day after that. Maybe I will. Maybe I won't. My apartment isn't far from the beach, and the bridge always beckons. The water's dark and deep. Some days it looks calm, and every day it looks inviting.

I wish I was courageous. I should just go up to the bridge and do it, and stop going over it in my mind like a loop, again and again. I should have I told Angel that I was his friend, not his hired gun. I should have left after Lindsay slaughtered the Sahrvins. I should have just melted away as soon as Angel announced his asinine plan to die for no good reason—excuse me, to strike a blow against the Senior Partners; how could I have forgotten?

There are so many _I should haves_ I can't think of them any more, or I'll go nuts.

Show's over, folks. Don't wait for the fat lady, she's not going to sing anytime soon.

And I can't blame her a bit.

**The End**


End file.
